Apple Preps for Immersive Content in Vision Pro with New iPhone Feature
Three takeaways for brands from Apple’s iPhone 15 Launch Event
Like clockwork, another September brings a new set of iPhones and Apple Watches. The Cupertino-based company refreshed its smartphone and smartwatch lineups with a “Wonderlust” media event on Tuesday. The topline announcements from Apple can be summed up with the following tweet:
At a glance, it seems very business as usual for Apple — faster Apple SIlicon chips, better cameras, brighter displays: all Apple’s usual talking points in recent years. The form factor remained mostly the same for both products, save for some minor adjustments (the iPhone Pro model now has a titanium case, for example). Smartphone innovation has plateaued for a few years now, and this year’s new iPhones certainly don’t aim to change that.
Yet, taking a deeper look, there’re still some interesting insights to be gleaned from this rather standard iPhone launch event. Here are the three most relevant takeaways from the latest Apple event for innovation-minded brand marketers.
Laying The Content Groundwork For Vision Pro
Ever since it was reported that Apple’s upcoming Vision Pro headsets, first unveiled in June at its developer event, would support an Apple-proprietary immersive, 3D video format, speculations have been flying around about what device would be required to capture moments in this format. Now we know.
The new iPhone 15 Pro will feature a state-of-art camera system that will enable users to capture what Apple is calling “Spatial Videos,” which reportedly are so vivid and life-like that, when viewed with Vision Pro headset, viewers can feel transported back to that moment when the video is taken. Plus, Apple also announced that users will be able to share these new spatial videos with anyone who also has an Apple Vision Pro.
Enabling the latest top-of-the-line iPhone to record in this new video format meant for Vision Pro viewing is a logical move, as most people already carry their phones with them all day, and it’d be inconvenient to require a special device for capturing spatial videos. Although it likely won’t be a big enough differentiator for consumers choosing between the Pro and non-Pro models, considering that Apple’s initial batch of Vision Pro headsets, which Tim Cook said is still on track to ship “early next year,” will likely be limited in quantity, it is apparent that Apple is once again leveraging the strength of its ecosystem of devices to lay the groundwork for future updates.
By a similar logic, two other new updates are also likely to be related to Apple seeding the hardware upgrades required to capture better immersive content for Vision Pro viewings. First, the iPhone 15 Pro models come with a brand new “Pro-class GPU” embedded in its A17 Pro chips, which enables what Apple calls “hardware-based ray tracing” that will enable more realistic rendering in mobile games and AR experiences. Second, the new iPhones will roll out with new “focus and depth” control for capturing “next-generation portraits,” which can be adjusted after the photo is taken. This feature also contributes to laying the groundwork for immersive formats by familiarizing users with 3D content capturing.
This is relevant for brand marketers because the potential mass adoption of this new 3D video format could represent an important piece of the puzzle for the development of an entire cohort of emerging innovations that include augmented reality, virtual reality, and the metaverse. Far from simply allowing people to relive their favorite vacation moments at home, this new format could also be applied to capture and transmit live events like sports matches and concerts, so as to bring a life-like experience to consumers sitting at home. Already, Apple is teaming up with Pixar and Adobe to push for a standard format for interoperable 3D tools and data. By seeding 3D content creation capabilities in its new iPhones, Apple is subtly signaling marketers to get on board with exploring 3D brand assets and content creation.
Enabling Quick Access with New Intuitive Controls
In another nod to the Vision Pro, Apple is bringing the two-finger, double-tap gesture control first seen with the headset to the latest lineup of Apple Watch. Designed for single-hand interactions, this new gesture control will allow users to control the “dominant button” in apps and scroll through a feed simply by tapping their thumb and index finger together twice in quick succession. Users can use it to answer or end calls, snooze alarms, play or pause music, all without needing to touch the display.
Different from how the tapping gesture control works on Vision Pro, which is done through hand-tracking via cameras embedded in the headset, the new Apple Watch is doing so by detecting tiny changes in wrist movements and blood flow. Apple says the Neural Engine in its latest S9 chipset for Apple Watch “processes data from the accelerometer, gyroscope, and optical heart sensor with a new machine learning algorithm, which detects the unique signature of tiny wrist movements and changes in blood flow when the index finger and thumb perform a double tap.”
Beyond this intuitive gesture control feature, for the new Pro models, Apple also replaced the long-standing ring / silent switch on the side of every iPhone with a new Action Button. Besides switching between ring and silent mode, this new button can also be customized to trigger one-click quick access to a variety of iOS-native features, such as taking a picture, recording a voice memo, and turning on the flashlight. Further third-party app functions could also be accessed by setting up a Shortcut.
Here’s a live demo of how to customize the Action Button:
Taken together, these two new control features unlock new use cases that some brands may be able to design their apps around to improve user experience. Similar to the Dynamic Island display feature first introduced with last year’s iPhones, the double-tap gesture control and the Action Button will become a part of the user experience. In other words, they represent new tools that brands can play with to deliver an interesting mobile and wearable experience. For example, could Domino’s create a Shortcut that allows users to order a pizza by simply clicking the Action Button? Or IKEA could create an AR measuring app that works with the new gesture control on the Apple Watch? While those use cases may sound gimmicky, the brands that are innovation-forward enough to be the first-movers to design something cool and useful around these two new gesture controls could win some goodwill (and headlines) among Apple users.
Doubling Down On The Eco-Conscious Messaging
One last thing that brand marketers should pay attention to is how Apple is doubling down on its environmental efforts and making a big sustainability-based marketing push based on it. To commemorate Apple Watch Series 9 being Apple’s first carbon-neutral product, Apple produced a comedy skit featuring Oscar winner Octavia Spencer as Mother Nature coming to inspect Apple’s environmental efforts (and staring down Tim Cook). Sure, Apple has always touted its environmental initiatives during previous product launch events, but this time around, a lot more time was spent on making sure that the eco-friendly messages get across.
Beyond the amusing skit and the now-standard mentions of upcycling materials, Apple also highlighted a new FineWoven textile, which is set to replace leather for both iPhone cases and Watch bands with a “suede-like” fabric.
In addition, Apple also emphasized its decision to ship its products by sea freight instead of air for the sake of reducing carbon emissions. All these initiatives came together to form a holistic picture of Apple’s commitment to its environmental goals, one of them being making all of its products carbon neutral by 2030. So far, it seems to be on the right track — the company’s gross carbon emissions are decreasing, according to its latest environmental progress report.
For brands, the way Apple wove its environmental messaging into this launch event should be a lesson that value-based marketing centered around environmental or social causes has to be backed up with real corporate commitment to said causes. Too often, eco-conscious consumers have been burnt by suspected corporate greenwashing and grown cynical towards any campaign built around environmental messaging. In order to win them back, brands should be transparent and specific about the actions they are taking to reduce their environmental impact, be it choosing sustainable materials or shipping methods, and provide concrete, third-party-certified evidence to back up the claims.
